This article originally appeared November 26, 2024. 

Last year, I saw Larry and Sue at my father’s funeral.

My parents had been friends with them for decades. Their children were some of my best friends growing up. It had been 20 years since we had seen each other.

When I saw the couple at the funeral, I introduced my wife to them and told her a story of their past kindness:

I was about 13 and I needed eyeglasses. My parents couldn’t afford the eye exam or the glasses. Larry and Sue were in town visiting and somehow, they recognized the need. With no fanfare, they gave my parents the money to get me outfitted with glasses.

As I told my wife this story, Larry and Sue both started crying.

“I had forgotten all about that,” Larry said. “I can’t believe you remembered.”

Gratitude costs nothing and means the world.

A 2023 survey found that the average American adult says “thank you” six times a day, or about 2,200 times in a year. These small courtesies are a good practice.

Gratitude, however, runs deeper than the quick word of thanks you say to the barista or mailman. Researchers have found that gratitude is linked to better health, higher productivity and stronger connections with others.

Another story about gratitude: Several years ago, I was meeting with Dr. De Hicks, a friend who has studied and written about leadership for decades. In one research project, he studied high-achieving leaders who had maintained success for many years. He then compared those leaders to a different set of leaders who achieved success and then burned out.

The group of high-achieving leaders practiced gratitude daily (81% of them), usually as part of their morning routine.

There were other points of comparison, but this idea intrigued me. “How does one practice gratitude?” I wondered. Then I remembered something my mother taught me: The old-fashioned handwritten note.

So I set a goal of sending 100 thank-you notes over the next year.

Writing two notes a week is hard work. I had to activate an internal radar to identify things for which I could express gratitude. Sometimes it felt a little weird.

Over time, I learned that gratitude replicates. I sent 100 notes as planned. About half the people I wrote to replied and thanked me for thanking them. The practice of gratitude gave us both happiness.

A few years ago, researchers Amit Kumar and Nicholas Epley decided to measure how thank-you letters affected the sender or the recipient. The researchers discovered three things, which they published in 2018.

First, the act of sending a thank-note makes the sender happy. People who participated in the study reported a more positive mood after writing a letter.

Second, the researchers asked the senders to predict how their recipients would feel upon getting an unexpected letter. Then the researchers checked in with the recipients. The positivity they felt exceeded predictions.

Third, not only did the people who wrote letters underestimate how happy the recipient would feel, they also overestimated whether the recipient would feel awkward about getting a letter. This asymmetry often causes people to hesitate before writing a thank-you note, which is regrettable because a thank-you note improves your outlook on life, whether you send one or receive it.

Americans just went through a chaotic national election. In politics, outrage is the coin of the realm. Outrage drives turnout and votes. It gets people fired up. This is why both political parties predicted national doom if the other side won.

Gratitude, on the other hand, says, “Look what I’ve been given — my family, my home, my health, etc. This is a blessing. Let me appreciate the people who helped me along the way. And let me use what I have to help someone else.”

Perhaps gratitude can be an antidote to outrage.

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